The American Veterinary Medical Association recommends that cats in urban and suburban environments be kept indoors. However, a cat's health and welfare can be affected by its surroundings. In this regard, cats are natural hunters. Even indoors, cats retain their predatory instincts and behaviors, including stalking, clawing, chewing, and marking. When cats live indoors, they are deprived of natural outlets for these behaviors. Under these circumstances cats may begin to express undesirable behaviors, including scratching furniture and eliminating outside of the litter box.
While commercially available dry cat food satisfies the nutritional needs for domestic cats, it does nothing to allow a cat to express its natural hunting behavior. It is much healthier for cats to be given the option to hunt for prey. Failure to provide opportunities to hunt deprives cats of mental stimulation and physical activity. This can cause obesity and other health and behavioral problems. Accordingly, a need exists for a cat food feeding system that enables an indoor cat to employ its natural hunting instincts.
The subject invention addresses that need by providing feeding systems for indoor cats to enable such cats to feed themselves several times a day with dry cat food in a safe, easy-to-use manner that enriches their body, mind and spirit.
In addition, the subject invention is directed to packaging for such cat feeding systems.